Marika Hackman

England’s Marika Hackman, a self-taught guitarist, began her professional career in music in 2012 after being ‘discovered’ by Burberry and was subsequently invited to join the fashion label’s acoustic music series.

Her first official release was the Free Covers EP the following year, made digitally available through her website. The EP features Hackman’s unique renditions of songs originally performed by Warpaint, Nirvana, Nico, The Knife and Dusty Springfield.

We Slept At Last (2015)

Shortly after, Hackman released the 7-song That Iron Taste, her first set of original songs, and began to tour with singer-songwriter Laura Marling. Her third EP, Sugar Blind arrived later that same year, followed by her fourth, Deaf Heat in the earlier part of 2014. Both featured new material as well as Hackman covering harpist Joanna Newsom‘s ’81’ and Lykke Li‘s ‘I Follow Rivers.’

Hackman’s full-length debut, We Slept At Last finally arrived earlier this year, further solidifying her songwriting talents. It’s a hypnotic record of original material whose tone is perfectly set with the album’s opener, ‘Drown,’ an eerily dark track whose consistent whirring and Hackman’s unaffected delivery can incite goosebumps.

Oh, to drown in your mind
I would, I know I would.
To suffocate in your smoke,
I’d choke on you if I could.
Maybe I will.

While certainly fitting within the folk genre, Hackman’s blend is often dark and melancholy. At only 23, she is creating some of the most affecting music I’ve heard in a long time.

For more of Hackman’s music, please visit her official site which currently features nearly all of her releases available for streaming via SoundCloud.